How to Start a Fire for Survival

14 Sep

When you find yourself in a survival situation, particularly in a cold weather, there are a few things that you need for survival just like the creation of fire. Hypothermia may set in by the time your body temperature drops by two degrees. This means that the only thing that gets in between your being alive and being frozen to death is fire. One more thing is that it is important to have a positive attitude in life, to survive, and to be back to your family. Having a nice and warm fire may spell the difference between hope and despair. However knowing how to create a fire with no matches or lighter may be difficult. If you have never spent time learning all these survival skills in the past, it will be impossible to master them during times of stress.

Here are a few things you have to keep in mind when you're caught in a situation where you have to build a fire on your own:

Location

You have to consider where you will place your shelter. The location of your fire has to be chosen based on the location of your shelter. You can choose under the canopy of a tree whose limbs are 10 feet high. You also have to consider where the wind's direction is coming from. This will affect the way in which you maintain and control the fire. You also need to check the condition of the ground where you will build fire. Is it wet? You can choose rocks or green bows that you can use to start the fire. You also need to clear the area from debris and build an area of containment. Get more info here!

Identify Useful Material

Remember that it's not possible for you to start a fire without fuel. Dead timber can be the best timber you can have. There are other alternatives like dried dung and also grasses that are bundled and tied into a knot. It goes to say that you have to find tinder. A wadded newspaper could be a good tinder. You can shave off the outer wet layer of a stick to reveal the dry inner layer which can be used as tinder, check out video here!

Old clothes can also be used as tinder. You can also carry with you some tinder like cotton balls covered in petroleum jelly, lighter wood or pine wood chunks, steel wool, char cloth, and dryer lint. To read more on the advantages of knowing how to build a survival fire, you can check out http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-make-your-own-survival-kit.